Annnd, here we are. The end of my very first Rizzoli & Isles story. Thanks for all the reviews, and I hope you all enjoy the final chapter. Also to anyone out there reading this and debating whether to review: please do. Even if it's months or years after I've finished updating, I'll still get an alert and I'll appreciate the feedback. And that's about it. Here you go, guys.

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12:01 pm.

Life in a psychiatric hospital didn't suit Jane, and neither did the plain white patient uniform they were all required to wear. But when Maura went to visit her a month after Hoyt's death, Jane seemed to be doing okay. She was sitting in the visitors area, her hands resting on the table in front of her. The left hand was still bandaged after the surgery, and the sleeves of the uniform covered the scars on her wrists. But Maura knew they were there, and the thought made her unbearably sad.

"Hi," she said softly as she approached.

Jane watched her cautiously, more animated than she had been the last time Maura saw her but still not back to normal. "Hey," she replied, her voice friendly enough, but she tensed as Maura sat down.

Maura smiled gently, and Jane laughed at her own jumpiness. "Sorry," she said, forcing herself to relax. "Force of habit."

"How have you been?" Maura asked, trying her best to see Jane as a person and not as a patient. She'd been getting updates on Jane from her doctors here, but she hadn't seen her since the night they'd killed Hoyt. In exchange for her testimony against Hoyt, Jane had avoided any prison charges – but she had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital, one of the best in the state, and nobody was sure when she'd be released. Maura had even heard Frost wondering whether Jane would ever leave, but Frankie and Korsak were hopeful.

Jane spread her arms wide, reminding them of where they were. Then she shrugged. "I've been okay," she said, and to her surprise she meant it. She was undergoing rigorous treatment for her PTSD, and so far it seemed to be helping. She still had a long road ahead of her, but the hospital was a safe place for her to recover. And to learn to live with what she'd done, and what had been done to her.

"That's good." Maura's gaze drifted down to the table, and she found herself wondering what to say. She knew that Frankie and Mrs Rizzoli had already visited Jane, and that Korsak and Frost would be by tomorrow, and despite all they'd been through Maura felt like maybe she didn't have a right to be here. She and Jane had gone through something intense, but she hadn't known her for years like the others. In all honesty, she wasn't sure why she'd even come here.

"You didn't have to visit me." Jane watched Maura, picking up on how uncomfortable the doctor was. She'd been working on her people skills while she was here; everything Hoyt had done to her had skewed her view of the world, making it hard to interact with others, but she was getting some of her old charisma back. And she was starting to let herself believe that not everyone was out to hurt her.

"I know I didn't," Maura said simply. "But I wanted to."

Unexpectedly, this made Jane smile. She'd thought that Maura would want nothing to do with her after what happened, but here she was. "Well, thank you," Jane said gruffly, not wanting to show too much emotion – she wasn't ready for that yet – but needing to show that she was grateful.

"How are you finding the treatment so far?" Maura asked, wanting to keep the conversation going. She didn't want to put too much pressure on Jane to talk, but she didn't want her to close off again either.

"It's intense," Jane said with a snort. That was putting it lightly. "But I think it's working."

"I'm glad you chose to get help," Maura said, and she saw Jane wince slightly at the word help, as if she still wasn't used to it.

"It was either that or prison," Jane reminded her, "and orange is not my color."

Maura laughed, but her thoughts were turning to more serious topics. "You still made a choice," she said, and they both understood the significance of her words. Back in the basement, Jane had made the choice not to kill her; Maura still wasn't quite brave enough to ask her whether she regretted her choice, but she was glad of it all the same.

"It wasn't really a choice," Jane said. She lowered her gaze to her hands, turning them over so she could see the faint marks left by the scalpels Hoyt had shoved into them. "I wasn't what he thought I was," she said softly, and Maura wasn't sure if she was talking to her or talking to herself. "I wasn't like him after all."

"You're a good person, Jane," Maura said, and the other woman jerked her head up in surprise. She looked like she was about to object, but then Jane just shrugged again.

She paused, and then said, "Well I'm not a serial killer at least, so that's a good place to start."

They shared a smile, but Jane's thoughts were drifting. She'd been a cop for so many years that she didn't know who she was outside of the force. She'd been a detective, and then she'd been Hoyt's prisoner, and now she was… something. She didn't know if she'd ever go back to being a cop, even if they did finally allow her to once she'd completed her treatment. She needed to figure out who she was, sans gun and scalpel and everything she'd ever hidden behind. She was just Jane now, and she needed to make peace with that.

"There's a long way to go," Maura agreed gently. She wanted to say something encouraging, but she didn't want to seem condescending or pitying. So instead she just smiled again. Jane seemed to be struggling with herself, and when she spoke again her voice was quiet, almost strangled by emotion.

"I'm sorry for what I did to you," she said, still looking at the table. "And I'm sorry for what I… what I tried to do."

Maura couldn't quite bring herself to say that it was okay or that she forgave her, but it meant a lot that Jane was apologizing. "Thank you," she said, and something passed between them, some kind of silent understanding. Whatever happened in the basement was behind them, and they just had to move forward. "You know," she went on, trying to draw Jane back into the conversation before she fell into one of the bouts of self-loathing that the doctors had said she was prone to, "from what Frankie and Frost and Korsak have told me, I think you and I would have worked well together."

"Are you kidding me?" Jane asked, so startled that she glanced up and met Maura's eyes. Her gaze held her there, and she dialled down her response. "We would have been at each other's throats all day."

"Maybe," Maura laughed, "but in another lifetime I think we could have been friends."

Jane paused, her gaze searching Maura's face, and then she asked, "What about in this one?"

Maura considered her answer, and then she smiled. "We'll see," she said, the best answer she could give. And for now, it was enough.

Maybe this lifetime wasn't the way they'd imagined it, and maybe they'd never go back to the way things were. And maybe that was okay. Hoyt was dead, Jane was free, and Maura was still alive. They had a long road of recovery ahead of them, but this seemed like the perfect place to start.

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And that's it. What'd you think?

A few of you showed interest in my next story, so here's a rough synopsis:

When a new serial killer known as The Doctor begins terrorizing Boston, it's up to BPD to put a stop to it. But the killer's MO hits too close to home, and the evidence left behind at the crime scenes seems to be a deliberate message for one of the team. The case takes an even more personal turn when one of their own confesses a deadly secret, causing the investigation itself to be called into question. Has the team really found the killer or is there more to the story? Can they uncover the truth in time? Find out in "the science of murder", a multi-chapter drama/suspense story coming out soon.

See you all there!